Subwoofer

[f1eng]

I have an ancient REL Studio sub, the last product before Richard Lloyd sold the company I think.
My horns go down to about 35-40 Hz and the sub fills in nicely. My Epilogs go down to 26Hz so the sub really only comes into its own for special effects in films if I am using them.
Even back then there was a line input provided, even though Richard Lloyd himself recommended picking up the input signal from the speaker outputs (which I did before I bought a Devialet).
It is huge btw!

[Peter van der Laarse]

Hi all,

I am using subs since 1981 - the first time I bought Quad electrostatics (ESL57-stacked) and have a lot of experience with it. It's a science for sure:

1. I own The Rel StudioII, the Rel StentorII and the Rel StadiumIII at the same time and all for more than 15 years now.... I use the Rel StentorII in combination with the Devialet Pro220 and the newest Quad ESL2812(bought 2015new) and Kef RDMtwo and Quad 707 in surround on the Oppo 105D, the Studio in combination with Kef RDMone and Quad 707 amplification with Oppo 103EU, The Stadium with Quad22 speakers and a Denon AVR-X3000 surround amp. Two different houses; now in three rooms.

2. I tried Velodybe, Kef, Audio-Pro and B&W subs as well, but the only subs which can go allong with the quality of the undistorted Quad sound are Rels. And it's also a design thing: Rel is really designed not to add low frequencies to the sound: it's designed to add qualtity to the sound. It's very strange but when a top Rel is good implemented into the sound system, the quality of the MIDRANGE is incredibly better then without such a sub. The clarity, the depth, the sound stage, a Rel makes such a huge difference. And with Quad electrostatics the midrange is good; believe me.

3. Most people don't know this and almost always the sub is really not implemented well into the system; the Rel table is:
Coarse  Fine   Strata   Storm   Stadium   Stentor/ Studio

1           1       30        30        25               25
1           2       33        33        26               26
1           3       36        36        28               28
1           4       39        39        30               30
2           1       43        43        32               32
etc etc
Tip: You only need the first 4 settings named here. The best way is connecting the sub parallel to the speaker output, leave the speakers full range and set the sub very low and turn up the volume of the sub quite high. With the Quads the sub is set at coarse 1, fine 2: 26 Hz. The Quad are measuring 32 Hz - 6 dB, so try a rather low frequency setting.

4. I bought specialized Van den Hul sub cable to try the active Devialet sub output. Waist of money of course: the design of a Rel is to implement into the sound system and therefore the signal of the power-amplifier MUST go into the Rel-sub. The speed, the quality; everthing must go into the sub to benefit from the design. So please set-up SAM as good as possible as you would listen without a sub and voila....

5. Audio Quest makes a special speaker cable for Rel subs. Look and search on the web site. You can order it at your dealer: beautiful and usefull.

6. I tried the Devialet in a active way as a pre out: sub filtered at 12Hz 24/octave in combination with the Clearaudio turntable with TT arm and with the sub out (all settings tried). On paper this was beautifull: in practise the Rel way keeps the best way by far... The disappearing act is far away in this active way.

7. For every sub-woofer user-try to google on "Rel set-up made simple" and read the 5 pages carefully: "things before you begin, connecting, positioning, the process, phase, room orientation, placement, crossover and gain settings, theater and film applications". Very usefull information indeed.

8. Underneath your sub (and speakers also by the way) you can best place a tumbstone; brilliant and cheap. I ordered them exactly made at a funeral company: also for under my Oppo105D with spikes firering downwards. The next step can be completed with Nordost cones, Clearaudio cones etc


At last to remember: a good sub adds no bass, but raises the quality of the sound substantially. As long as you have't that feeling yet, you're not there! I hope somebody liked this information.

[f1eng]

Hi all,

I am using subs since 1981 - the first time I bought Quad electrostatics (ESL57-stacked) and have a lot of experience with it. It's a science for sure:

1. I own The Rel StudioII, the Rel StentorII and the Rel StadiumIII at the same time and all for more than 15 years now.... I use the Rel StentorII in combination with the Devialet Pro220 and the newest Quad ESL2812(bought 2015new) and Kef RDMtwo and Quad 707 in surround on the Oppo 105D, the Studio in combination with Kef RDMone and Quad 707 amplification with Oppo 103EU, The Stadium with Quad22 speakers and a Denon AVR-X3000 surround amp. Two different houses; now in three rooms.

2. I tried Velodybe, Kef, Audio-Pro and B&W subs as well, but the only subs which can go allong with the quality of the undistorted Quad sound are Rels. And it's also a design thing: Rel is really designed not to add low frequencies to the sound: it's designed to add qualtity to the sound. It's very strange but when a top Rel is good implemented into the sound system, the quality of the MIDRANGE is incredibly better then without such a sub. The clarity, the depth, the sound stage, a Rel makes such a huge difference. And with Quad electrostatics the midrange is good; believe me.

3. Most people don't know this and almost always the sub is really not implemented well into the system; the Rel table is:
Coarse  Fine   Strata   Storm   Stadium   Stentor/ Studio

1           1       30        30        25               25
1           2       33        33        26               26
1           3       36        36        28               28
1           4       39        39        30               30
2           1       43        43        32               32
etc etc
Tip: You only need the first 4 settings named here. The best way is connecting the sub parallel to the speaker output, leave the speakers full range and set the sub very low and turn up the volume of the sub quite high. With the Quads the sub is set at coarse 1, fine 2: 26 Hz. The Quad are measuring 32 Hz - 6 dB, so try a rather low frequency setting.

4. I bought specialized Van den Hul sub cable to try the active Devialet sub output. Waist of money of course: the design of a Rel is to implement into the sound system and therefore the signal of the power-amplifier MUST go into the Rel-sub. The speed, the quality; everthing must go into the sub to benefit from the design. So please set-up SAM as good as possible as you would listen without a sub and voila....

5. Audio Quest makes a special speaker cable for Rel subs. Look and search on the web site. You can order it at your dealer: beautiful and usefull.

6. I tried the Devialet in a active way as a pre out: sub filtered at 12Hz 24/octave in combination with the Clearaudio turntable with TT arm and with the sub out (all settings tried). On paper this was beautifull: in practise the Rel way keeps the best way by far... The disappearing act is far away in this active way.

7. For every sub-woofer user-try to google on "Rel set-up made simple" and read the 5 pages carefully: "things before you begin, connecting, positioning, the process, phase, room orientation, placement, crossover and gain settings, theater and film applications". Very usefull information indeed.

8. Underneath your sub (and speakers also by the way) you can best place a tumbstone; brilliant and cheap. I ordered them exactly made at a funeral company: also for under my Oppo105D with spikes firering downwards. The next step can be completed with Nordost cones, Clearaudio cones etc


At last to remember: a good sub adds no bass, but raises the quality of the sound substantially. As long as you have't that feeling yet, you're not there! I hope somebody liked this information.

I may be wrong here, but I am pretty sure the REL power amp connection method can't be used with bridged amps since it will earth one leg of the amp.
So connecting up this way will probably not be an option with any of the dual mono Devialets (440, 1000, O d'A), I certainly chose not to risk it!

[devianet]

Fascinating info Peter, and much of it sounds familiar to me.

I have 1x D-Prem + Quad ESL2905 + REL Studio III and for me, the system is nirvana. I owned the ESLs before the DP and was always floored by their qualities when driven by Quad's own amps, and more so when driven by the likes of Boulder/Krell/Levinson, but it took the DP to reveal what they're really capable of, which is, frankly, on a completely different level.

This combination ended upgraditis completely, and I've just been enjoying the music for the last 5 years. I do have to disagree with you though that the REL adds no bass. In the region 16-32Hz (bottom octave of a large pipe organ, orchestral bass drum, but little else) it adds a lot, but in a completely musical way, and fast enough to keep up with the Quads, which is where subwoofers usually fail. As you say, the midrange improvement is remarkable also - but only when the REL ABC adjustment is done so as to make the sub "disappear"

I also tried the line-level drive for the REL, with and without rolling off the bass to the ESLs, and like you found it far inferior to the REL-recommended speaker-level connection.

I have the ABC upper roll-off on the Studio III set to the minimum frequency, and the gain turned up accordingly. This works best in my room and with the bass of the ESLs, which is plentiful.

I don't really have any urge to upgrade this system, but from comments you made elsewhere on this forum it seems the biggest step up would be to go to ESL2912, then to 2 X DP (assuming shared-negative + half signal for the 3-wire REL feed works) before upgrading to 250Pro. If indeed, I still can.....

[watchnerd]

6. I tried the Devialet in a active way as a pre out: sub filtered at 12Hz 24/octave in combination with the Clearaudio turntable with TT arm and with the sub out (all settings tried). On paper this was beautifull: in practise the Rel way keeps the best way by far... The disappearing act is far away in this active way.

I don't understand what you mean by this or what the 'Rel way' is....

Are you saying?

1. Run the main speakers full range. Don't use a high pass filter.

2. Don't use a filter on the pre-out.  Use the low pass filter on the subwoofer.

[David A]

6. I tried the Devialet in a active way as a pre out: sub filtered at 12Hz 24/octave in combination with the Clearaudio turntable with TT arm and with the sub out (all settings tried). On paper this was beautifull: in practise the Rel way keeps the best way by far... The disappearing act is far away in this active way.

I don't understand what you mean by this or what the 'Rel way' is....

Are you saying?

1. Run the main speakers full range. Don't use a high pass filter.

2. Don't use a filter on the pre-out.  Use the low pass filter on the subwoofer.

As a counterpoint to what @Peter van der Laarse wrote:

My first REK was a Strata III back in the days when I was using a NAD M3 integrated. I never managed to get it to work convincingly with the speakers in my audio system. At that time I was just starting to get interested in home theatre and was setting up a separate system for my TV. I moved the REL to that system, used the line level connection to the sub out on the Denon AVR I was using there, ran the automated setup system, and got instant success. Years later, having reverted to stereo in the HT setup and gone back to a stereo amp there, I once again tried the speaker level setup but ignored most of the REL instructions, used pink noise and an octave band frequency analyser app on my iPhone, and finally managed to get good results, actually very good results, with the speaker level setup. As Peter said however, you need to set the crossover setting on the REL low (I set it as low as it would go" and I ended up setting the REL's gain setting much higher than I thought I should. I don't find the speaker level setup easy with RELs, especially when I'm trying to do it by ear. Having octave band sound analysis makes it a lot easier and gave me better results than I ever got trying to do it by ear.

Peter mentioned an Audioquest cable for the REL. REL make a better quality cable themselves and I found it gave better results than the cable that comes with the sub.

I never tried a stone slab of any sort under my RELs, partly because they were on ceramic tiled cement slab floor. I  had a problem with the sub moving over time, however, because the tiles had a slightly uneven surface and all 4 feet didn't contact the floor equally well. I ended up using Auralex SubDude bases, essentially an MDF platform on a heavy acoustic foam layer. That gave an even surface for the REL's feet and stopped the subs moving, and it delivered better sound as well.

In the end I think you can do equally well whether you use the speaker level connection and run the speakers full range or use a line level connection with the amp providing a crossover between speaker and sub. If you're using the speaker level connection set the sub's crossover setting as low as it will go. If you're using the line level connection and letting the amp do the crossover then set the sub's crossover setting as high as it will go because the amp is providing crossover control. Either way, however, you need to balance the sub's level against the speakers' level to get a successful result and I found I needed measurements to do that. The way which worked for me was using octave band analysis and pink noise and adjusting the sub's gain until I got the smoothest response I could over the range from around 100 Hz on down, even though the crossover was set below 50 Hz. The app I used also offered third octave band analysis. I thought that would be better because of the greater resolution but in fact it made things harder because room modes were easier to spot and produced taller spikes on the display and I could never get them as low as I wanted. Using octave bands resulted in a display with spikes which weren't as large because the energy was now being averaged over an octave rather than a third of an octave and that actually made it easier fro me to get a smoother looking result on the display. Measurements are tricky because show levels which don't look like the way we hear the sound. Basically using octave band analysis may be lower resolution than third octave band but it makes the job of balancing the level of the sub to the level of the speakers much easier.

[watchnerd]

6. I tried the Devialet in a active way as a pre out: sub filtered at 12Hz 24/octave in combination with the Clearaudio turntable with TT arm and with the sub out (all settings tried). On paper this was beautifull: in practise the Rel way keeps the best way by far... The disappearing act is far away in this active way.

I don't understand what you mean by this or what the 'Rel way' is....

Are you saying?

1. Run the main speakers full range. Don't use a high pass filter.

2. Don't use a filter on the pre-out.  Use the low pass filter on the subwoofer.

As a counterpoint to what @Peter van der Laarse wrote:

My first REK was a Strata III back in the days when I was using a NAD M3 integrated. I never managed to get it to work convincingly with the speakers in my audio system. At that time I was just starting to get interested in home theatre and was setting up a separate system for my TV. I moved the REL to that system, used the line level connection to the sub out on the Denon AVR I was using there, ran the automated setup system, and got instant success. Years later, having reverted to stereo in the HT setup and gone back to a stereo amp there, I once again tried the speaker level setup but ignored most of the REL instructions, used pink noise and an octave band frequency analyser app on my iPhone, and finally managed to get good results, actually very good results, with the speaker level setup. As Peter said however, you need to set the crossover setting on the REL low (I set it as low as it would go" and I ended up setting the REL's gain setting much higher than I thought I should. I don't find the speaker level setup easy with RELs, especially when I'm trying to do it by ear. Having octave band sound analysis makes it a lot easier and gave me better results than I ever got trying to do it by ear.

Peter mentioned an Audioquest cable for the REL. REL make a better quality cable themselves and I found it gave better results than the cable that comes with the sub.

I never tried a stone slab of any sort under my RELs, partly because they were on ceramic tiled cement slab floor. I  had a problem with the sub moving over time, however, because the tiles had a slightly uneven surface and all 4 feet didn't contact the floor equally well. I ended up using Auralex SubDude bases, essentially an MDF platform on a heavy acoustic foam layer. That gave an even surface for the REL's feet and stopped the subs moving, and it delivered better sound as well.

In the end I think you can do equally well whether you use the speaker level connection and run the speakers full range or use a line level connection with the amp providing a crossover between speaker and sub. If you're using the speaker level connection set the sub's crossover setting as low as it will go. If you're using the line level connection and letting the amp do the crossover then set the sub's crossover setting as high as it will go because the amp is providing crossover control. Either way, however, you need to balance the sub's level against the speakers' level to get a successful result and I found I needed measurements to do that. The way which worked for me was using octave band analysis and pink noise and adjusting the sub's gain until I got the smoothest response I could over the range from around 100 Hz on down, even though the crossover was set below 50 Hz. The app I used also offered third octave band analysis. I thought that would be better because of the greater resolution but in fact it made things harder because room modes were easier to spot and produced taller spikes on the display and I could never get them as low as I wanted. Using octave bands resulted in a display with spikes which weren't as large because the energy was now being averaged over an octave rather than a third of an octave and that actually made it easier fro me to get a smoother looking result on the display. Measurements are tricky because show levels which don't look like the way we hear the sound. Basically using octave band analysis may be lower resolution than third octave band but it makes the job of balancing the level of the sub to the level of the speakers much easier.

I don't have a REL subwoofer....

So is this all irrelevant to anyone who isn't using REL?

[David A]

I don't have  a REL subwoofer....

So is this all irrelevant to anyone who isn't using REL?

It's relevant if you have a sub with the same connection options and controls as a REL.

You didn't say what sort of sub you have and you don't have a signature with your equipment listed so it was impossible to know that you didn't have a REL. On the other hand you replied to a 2 year old post about RELs and asked a question about the 'REL way' so I assumed you had a REL.

It's easy to get help if you tell people what components you have, what you want to know, and why you want to know that. Leave that information out and anyone who responds is almost certain to waste time giving an answer that doesn't help you because they really have no idea what you are wanting to find out. You still haven't provided any information that could help someone to give you an answer you will find useful.

[JohnnySix]

If there's anyone still listening to this topic... can you tell me if your subwoofer Pre-Out's are working when you listen via Devialet *AIR*?

I'm sure mine aren't, and have been thinking of informing Devialet. They work with any other input (including DLNA), and I've checked that Pre-Out is enabled everywhere in the Configurator.

[JohnnySix]

Forget this. Subs aware working with AIR after all!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk